Fareed Zakaria: Starve the Syrians into Compliance

On a recent segment of his CNN program, Fareed Zakaria called for imposing crippling sanctions on Syria in order to force regime change on the country.

Zakaria is a member of both the CFR and Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission. He is also a Bilderberg attendee. In other words, his call for starving the Syrians into accepting the will of the United Nations and the globalist establishment is one of the options under consideration.

As we noted on Saturday, the presence of Syrian National Transitional Council head Bassma Kodmani at the 2012 Bilderberg conference means the question of how best to color revolutionize the Arab country is on the minds of the ruling elite.

In May of 2011, the European Union imposed “restrictive measures” against Syria. It froze financial assets and imposed a travel ban. It banned the export to Syria of equipment, goods and technology that can be used for “internal repression” and also agreed to ban luxury goods. Investment in oil and construction was outlawed. All technical and financial assistance was made illegal.

Obama issued an executive order in August of 2011 prohibiting the exportation, sale or supply of services from the United States to Syria. It blocks investment and the export of oil from Syria. On May 30, the U.S. levied sanctions on the Syria International Islamic Bank. The Treasury Department said the bank has acted as a front for other Syrian financial institutions seeking to circumvent sanctions. A few days prior to this, the U.S. and around a dozen other countries expelled Syrian diplomats following a massacre in al-Houla, Syria, tht was blamed without conclusive evidence on al-Assad’s military.

In August of 2011, Congress introduced S.1472, a “bill to impose sanctions on persons making certain investments that directly and significantly contribute to the enhancement of the ability of Syria to develop its petroleum resources, and for other purposes.”

In November, the Arab League suspended Syria’s membership and adopted “unprecedented sanctions at a meeting in Cairo by a vote of 19 to three,” according to the BBC.

In the United States, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the Syrian Freedom Support Act by a unanimous vote in March of this year. It is intended to “strengthen sanctions against the Government of Syria, to enhance multilateral commitment to address the Government of Syria’s threatening policies, to establish a program to support a transition to a democratically-elected government in Syria, and for other purposes.”

The sanctions have not prevented the regime from responding to what it describes as foreign terrorists operating in its country. “We are facing a real war from outside,” al-Assad said on Sunday.

In November, we reported that the same al-Qaeda terrorists who fought U.S. troops in Iraq and helped NATO overthrow Gaddafi were airlifted into Syria. Libya’s transitional ruling authority agreed to send weapons and fighters to Syria to help the Free Syrian Army fight the al-Assad regime. In February, we reported that British Special Forces are on the ground in Syria directing rebel fighters.

A Stratfor email leaked by Wikileaks in March revealed that the Pentagon and the USAF strategic studies group planned direct terror attacks and assassinations inside Syria. “After a couple hours of talking, they said without saying that SOF teams (presumably from U.S., UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the ground focused on recce [reconnaissance] missions and training opposition forces,” the email states. Stratfor is an Austin,Texas-based corporate intelligence agency billed as a “shadow CIA.”

Admitting that the sanctions imposed thus far have largely failed, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Thursday the EU is drafting another round. That is a perfectly legitimate thing to do, no matter where things stand at the Security Council,” he said.

“Failure to agree on Syria with Russia and China, who have vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions and blunted Western efforts to push Assad from power, has prompted Britain and its allies to encourage nations outside of Europe to boycott Syria,” Reuters reported.

On the previous day, Susan Rice, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, said the United States and “like-minded governments could bypass the Security Council to impose fresh measures if the violence escalates in Syria.”

Russia and China have blocked additional and more severe sanctions in the United Nations Security Council.

John Walsh, writing for antiwar.com, argues that the current sanctions are, despite Fareed Zakaria’s arguments to the contrary, having a detrimental effect on Syria – or more precisely, the sanctions are having an adverse impact on the Syrian people.

Authoritarian regimes invariably shield themselves from sanctions while the population at large suffers, as the Washington Post admitted in April: “President Bashar al-Assad appears to have shielded himself and his inner circle from much of the pain of the sanctions and trade embargoes, which are driving up food and fuel prices for many of the country’s 20 million residents.” More than half the population of Syria lives in poverty and economic sanctions will obviously worsen conditions and ultimately result in malnutrition and starvation, as they did in Iraq.

Short of attacking the Syrian people and killing them with bombs, the globalists will opt for starving them to death. During the decade long sanction imposed on Iraq, more than 500,000 children died from malnutrition, disease and starvation.

The globalists have the same idea in mind for Syria, especially considering the fact al-Assad will not simply disappear into the night and allow the banksters and the IMF and the World Bank to set-up their debt wrecking ball and conduct the usual fire sales designed to steal Syria’s resources and sell them off at pennies on the dollar to the usual transnational corporate mobsters.

In a stunning yet predictable bit of propaganda, the New York Times reported after the al-Houla massacre that the United Nations will not allow the Syrian people to starve after new and more severe sanctions are put into place, although it sheepishly admits this will probably fail:

The U.N. has focused its efforts on regions worst hit by the conflict. Even before the violence broke out in Syria, a food security survey found that 1.4 million people were struggling to meet their daily food needs, the World Food Program said

But the U.N. agency complained that it had not yet managed to raise the money to pay for its food aid program. So the dilemma remains whether Mr. Assad can be starved of support without starving the Syrian people.